Literature’s Warm Breeze in the Prophet's City

Editor

Run your fingers along the shelves of your bookcase. You will see that no one's life has been recorded in as much detail as the Prophet Muhammad's (peach be upon him) life. The tradition of sirah continues, as it has for centuries, to describe the Prophet in the finest detail: his birth, his youth, the coming of revelation, the Migration, the Badr-Uhud-Handaq battles, agreements and victories. Excavating the events from the time tunnel like archeologists, Islamic historians have carried the Age of Felicity to a chronology based center with this approach within a framework of its own scholastic disciplines.

We all know that, while attempting to identify "what is closest to the truth" when investigating the past, historians have maintained their principle of objectivity by remaining remote from emotional explanations. For history is a branch of knowledge that is far removed from partisanship and is focused only on discovering the truth.

Accustomed to learning the Prophet's life from history books, we find a different kind of book on bookshelves today. Taking the Prophet's life out of history's straight-forward and dry-cut style and putting this unique life under literature's brilliant light, this is a book that surrounds events with feelings and gives life to knowledge: Il Libro Disceso Dal Cielo (the English title of the book would be "Spring in Yathrib" but there is no translation into English from the Italian original as of yet)...

One of Italy's experts on Muslim culture, A. abd al-Waliyy Vincenzo invites literature's warm breeze to blow in the city of the Prophet in Il Libro Disceso Dal Cielo.

Based on the biographies of the Prophet, the first years of the founding of Islam in Madinah are related by means of an original scenario from the perspective of Zayd b. Sabit, a scribe of revelation. The story of eight year-old Zayd's curiosity about the Prophet turning into the adventure of becoming a scribe of revelation keeps one's curiosity whetted. The most important characteristic that makes the book interesting is its being a biography, which is unusual for a novel. This biography not only removes the handicap of "describing the truth," but, opposed to the general "freedom of literature," it assigns the task of being guardian of the age in which they lived to learned men mentioned in the biography like Ibn Ishaq, Taberi, Buhari, Gazali, Nawawi. But, at any rate, the author keeps the free flow between events and characters in harmony with the basic principles of Islam.

The arrangement of the flow of events in the book can be followed in the Seerah of Ibn Ishaq (A.D. 750), one of the most comprehensive works on the Prophet and the early period of Islam. In addition, he benefits from contemporary author Martin Lings' synthesis of ancient stories regarding the Prophet's life and different Islamic classics that present animate examples of settled life in the city of Madinah. It is understood that Vincenzo, taking into consideration the relations of knowledge between the East and West, wanted to make a contribution to inter-faith dialogue by means of this work.

Another noteworthy aspect of Il Libro Disceso Dal Cielo is the book's being written in view of modern man's expectations and curiosity. The writer sets up common perceptions that will enable people of today to more easily understand a period that existed centuries ago. Perceiving the presence of private single rooms in a tribe's tent made from animal hair in a life style that takes place in desert surroundings is not a historical reality, but a possibility presented only by literature. Also the novel narrows down the time between today and the period in which it takes place by reducing it to a relationship between two people at a time when polygamy was widespread in Arab society and by allowing the reader to feel that he is presented with a segment from his own life. Thus, modern man, who has made everything in his hands a god, has a better chance of understanding what Islam brought to the world of the idolaters who made god ordinary and the aspect of the Prophet's teachings that addresses today. Undoubtedly, one of the most important factors that contribute to the formation of the atmosphere that surrounds the reader is the translators who make the book readable and emotional with a flowing style and informative footnotes.

In Il Libro Disceso Dal Cielo where the hard and sharp images of the tribal chief prototype, (with which we identify the harsh nature of the desert climate) are softened, you encounter the tribal chief with warm and refined dialogue and you are a companion to the excitement and joys of child heroes in a Yathrib mansion. You meet Zayd who has a broad forehead, lightening glances and black hair combed in an Arabian style that frames these glances, and share his excitement of seeing the sea for the first time. This excitement changes shape with Zayd's becoming a scribe of revelation and Zayd ibn Sabit begins to teach students in Madinah, which has been left empty by the Prophet. The guidance of Zayd, who trained Madinah's seven great jurists who would not dare to give a decision without referring to the views of the caliphs, is reflected in our lives with this book.

As opposed to history's being written only on a diagonal of wars and military successes, Yesrib'de Bahar awaits the reader with a chain of events that are filled with sadness and joy and which includes every kind of human warmth. While waiting for similar   works of this kind which present different perspectives towards micro-historicity from macro-historicity, Madinah, the city of the Prophet, exists differently in our imagination now.

Ahmad ‘Abd Al Waliyy VINCENZO (orij. name: Il Libro Disceso Dal Cielo)